UConn head coach Bob Diaco has been on the job for eight months now.
Hired less than a week after the Huskies’ final 2013 regular season game, Diaco is looking to rebuild an era of football in Connecticut that correlates with its success and dual championships in basketball. (Kevin Ollie, you have set the bar very high for new head coaches whom arrive at Husky Nation.)
The 2012 Frank Broyles Award winner left his defensive coordinator position at Notre Dame to take full control of UConn’s program that finished 3-9 last year. Despite being ranked No. 9 in the preseason American Athletic Conference media poll (two lower than last year), Diaco plans to enter this season with a re-energized motor for the program.
“I believe when you have an apathetic student body and a faculty, you’re probably going to have failure on your athletic fields,” Diaco said at the AAC Media Day. “But where you have that great school spirit, it creates an extra heartbeat for the teams. That’s present at UConn. I want to help do everything I can to foster that and grow it. So now we start a new phase. We move from those first eight months to a new phase. I just can’t wait.”
Paul Pasqualoni was fired after a 0-4 start to last year’s campaign, and the program has not been to a bowl game since former head coach Randy Edsall’s—who is now with Maryland—2010 Fiesta Bowl appearance.
Diaco inherits multiple options at the quarterback position, NFL potential at wide receiver and cornerback, and an unproven offensive line.
However, it will be more interesting to see what Diaco makes out of the defense for this year and the next. While coaching the defense for the Fighting Irish in 2012, Notre Dame allowed only 12.8 points per game, good for No. 2 in the FBS that year and a trip to the BCS National Championship game.
The concern for UConn comes in the trenches of its inexperienced front five.
Alex Mateas anchors the o-line at center and will be in his senior year, and fellow senior Gus Cruz is expected to be back after missing seven games last season to a scary situation with shortness of breath. After that, Diaco let it be known during the AAC media day that there is (at least on the OL) “not a whole bunch of dudes there that are going to be able to play competitive, winning football for 12 games this season.”
It’s been a wild ride for eight months, but now it is time for the pads to come on and football to be played. The energy and hype will show up for UConn, but it is Diaco’s turn to get the program back to winning ways, and eventually a bowl game.
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